Gluck's

Orpheus and Eurydice

Synopsis

The opera opens with Orpheus
mourning the loss of his wife, Eurydice
who was fatally bitten by a snake. Grief
stricken, he vows to rescue her from the underworld. Amore,
the god of Love, consoles Orpheus by telling him
that love can overcome all obstacles and gives him only one condition
he must follow when he rescues Eurydice from Hades: he is not to hold
her hand or look at her until they have ascended from Hades. Orpheus
accepts the challenge and begins his passage to Hades.

Along his journey, he encounters the Furies, goddesses of vengeance.
Orpheus' singing rouses the Furies and they let him pass safely. When
Orpheus arrives at the Elysium, resting place of the souls of the
heroic and the virtuous, Eurydice is presented to him, blindfolded, by
the gods. Without looking at her or saying a word to her, he leads
Eurydice from Hades. Eurydice, impatient, begins to question Orpheus
about why he is not speaking to her and why they are unable to
embrace. She takes his coldness as rejection. No longer able to
restrain himself, Orpheus turns to answer Eurydice and she dies once
more in front of him. Distraught that his wife has died once again,
Orpheus attempts to kill himself but Amore stops him. Amore revives
Eurydice from death and the lovers are reunited.